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This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival
material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are
physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available
through the World Wide Web. See the
section for more information.

This collection was rehoused under the sponsorship of a grant from the National Endowment
for the Humanities, Office of Preservation, Washington, D.C., 1990-1992.

Letters and a few other items, 1839-1867, chiefly relating to the members of the Scott
family of New Hampshire and Vermont. The earliest papers are deeds, 1839 an 1849 copies
of 1830 deeds, dealing with property of the Scotts' Warren family relatives in Fairfax
and Chittenden counties, Vt. Letters begin in 1857, with those of Rogene A. Scott
Bailey (b. 1840), daughter of Hanah Scott Warren, attending a private music school
in Burlington, Vt. 1858 letters also relate to Rogene, who was then employed as a
teacher in Grayson, Ky. Letters 1859-June 1860 find Rogene teaching on a plantation
near Cheneyville, La., and those of August 1960-June 1862 document her teaching in
Nashville. During her stay in the South, Rogene wrote frequently about race relations,
especially attitudes of slaves and slaveholders towards each other and towards northerners
like herself. In 1862, she wrote graphically about her work with wounded soldiers.
Letters show that, in 1863, Rogene moved to Hyde Park, Vt., where, with her new husband
John Bailey, apparently a Presbyterian minister, and her sister-in- law, Rogene operated
a fairly successful school. There are also letters relating to Rogene's brother Don
E. Scott, who served with the 11th New Hampshire Volunteers. In letters, 1862-1865,
to his mother, sister, and future wife Nancy Smith, Scott described military life
and his unit's involvement at the battles of Fredricksburg, Vicksburg, and Petersburg.
From March 1863 to January 1867, there are also other letters to Nancy, including
one from a friend who assisted freedmen in Wilmington, N.C.

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants,
as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Scott Family Papers #4638, Southern Historical Collection,
The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Unknown.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or
confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy
laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. §
132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of
State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.).
Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to
identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent
of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under
common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's
private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable
person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no
responsibility.

The following terms from
Library of Congress Subject
Headings
suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the
entire collection; the terms do
not usually represent
discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or
items.

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Letters and a few other items, 1839-1867, chiefly relating to the members of the Scott
family of New Hampshire and Vermont. The earliest papers are deeds, 1839 an 1849 copies
of 1830 deeds, dealing with property of the Scotts' Warren family relatives in Fairfax
and Chittenden counties, Vt. Letters begin in 1857, with those of Rogene A. Scott
Bailey (b. 1840), daughter of Hanah Scott Warren, attending a private music school
in Burlington, Vt. 1858 letters also relate to Rogene, who was then employed as a
teacher in Grayson, Ky. Letters 1859-June 1860 find Rogene teaching on a plantation
near Cheneyville, La., and those of August 1960-June 1862 document her teaching in
Nashville. During her stay in the South, Rogene wrote frequently about race relations,
especially attitudes of slaves and slaveholders towards each other and towards northerners
like herself. In 1862, she wrote graphically about her work with wounded soldiers.
Letters show that, in 1863, Rogene moved to Hyde Park, Vt., where, with her new husband
John Bailey, apparently a Presbyterian minister, and her sister-in- law, Rogene operated
a fairly successful school. There are also letters relating to Rogene's brother Don
E. Scott, who served with the 11th New Hampshire Volunteers. In letters, 1862-1865,
to his mother, sister, and future wife Nancy Smith, Scott described military life
and his unit's involvement at the battles of Fredricksburg, Vicksburg, and Petersburg.
From March 1863 to January 1867, there are also other letters to Nancy, including
one from a friend who assisted freedmen in Wilmington, N.C.

Letters, chiefly to her mother and brother, from Rogene Scott teaching school and
giving private music lessons in Grayson, Carter County, Ky., where she boarded with
a Mr. and Mrs. Carter. In her first letter, dated 13 January, Rogene wrote of her
sympathy for slave house servants. She also wrote of feeling like the "Eastern Lady" on display and complained of the lack of religious fervor and general laziness among
her new acquaintances. By November, she was considering where to go next.

Letters, chiefly to her mother and brother, from Rogene Scott, who in January was
en route to a new position in Louisiana. On 20 January, she wrote, "I sometimes get quite afraid of being thus alone in the wide, wide world," but later letters show Rogene as a fairly confident young woman, teaching school
at the Tanner plantation in Cheneyville, Rapides Parish, La., and "not sad" that she chose to go South because she had been able to learn from her experiences.
Most letters are fairly descriptive of school and social life; many letters discuss
Rogene's feelings towards slavery. On 3 April, she wrote, "The Southern people denounce slavery as a curse and are even more conscious of its
evils than the North, but they deny the right of the Northern people meddling with
what does not in the least concern them." On 29 October, she wrote of the horrors that would follow if efforts to stir slaves
to insurrection were successful.

Letters, chiefly to her mother and brother, from Rogene Scott, first in Cheneyville
and later in Nashville, Tenn. In her 5 February letter, Rogene explained that the
greatest object of her life was "self-culture," followed closely by independence. Rogene sought to pursue this first goal more actively
by moving to Nashville around August, where she secured a position in a school where
she could learn French. Letters from Nashville chiefly tell of her school and social
contacts. There are also a few letters lamenting the difficulties she had in Cheneyville
and how she was still hearing unpleasant things about herself from Cheneyville acquaintances.
These difficulties were apparently the result of a conversation she had with someone
just before she left for Nashville in which she declared that, even after years in
the South, she was still an abolitionist. By the end of 1860, Rogene was disturbed
by the shadows of war on the horizon and declared, "This is the saddest Christmas."

Letters, chiefly to her mother and brother, from Rogene Scott, many of which deal
with national events. On 29 March, she wrote that she felt no immediate personal danger
in Nashville, since she had held her tongue on the slavery issue since her arrival.
On 7 April, she noted that her twenty-first birthday had occurred the day before,
and on 15 April told of the possibility of becoming associate principal in the flourishing
school where she worked. In May, there are a letters about "our trouble as a nation," including one on 28 May in which she wrote of rumors of slave rebellions in the Tennessee
countryside.

Letters, March to May, from Rogene Scott in Nashville and, September to December,
from Don Scott with the 11th New Hampshire Volunteers. Rogene's letters document her
work as a nurse. The 18 March letters contains particularly descriptive passages on
wounds and on how she was treated by the soldiers she tried to help. On 28 May, Rogene
wrote that she was unhappy with her employer and did not wish to stay on at the school.
She also wrote of feeling mistrusted as a northerner. On 2 September, Don wrote to
his mother from Camp Colby in Concord, N.Y. By 14 October, he was encamped around
Pleasant Valley, Va., from which he wrote of being shocked at the profanity used by
his fellow soldiers and about the general availability of temptations of all kinds
in camp. On 1 November, he told his mother, "Death to me has lost its sting, and would be but a welcome messenger to sever the
ties which bind my spirit to this dreary sinful world. In a letter of 16 December,
he described his unit's participation in the Battle of Fredricksburg."

Chiefly letters from Rogene Scott Bailey, now married and living in Hyde Park, Vt.,
and from Don Scott with the 11th New Hampshire Volunteers. Rogene's letters talk almost
exclusively about her married life--"I am getting Yankee again--I don't 'reckon' anymore"--and school activities. Rogene, her husband John Bailey, apparently a Presbyterian
minister, and her sister-in-law, seem to have operated a fairly successful school.
Don's letters show that his unit moved from Virginia to Kentucky to Mississippi, where
he participated in the Siege of Vicksburg, and back to Kentucky. There are also a
few letters to Nancy Smith, a social worker at Tyler House in New York City, from
an ex-soldier in Iowa and from her sister in Ohio. Nancy Smith later married Don Scott.

There are two letters from Rogene during this period: one in 1864 discusses the death
of her father, and the other in 1867 is to brother Don about family affairs. Don's
letters are chiefly love letters to Nancy Smith from various military camps, mostly
in Virginia. There is also a 2 August letter to his mother describing the Battle of
Petersburg, Va. There are also a few letters to Nancy Smith, including one in 1864
from a friend working with freedmen in Wilmington, N.C.